


Familiar

by Lightspeed



Series: Monstrous Intent [36]
Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Burds, Familiars, Gen, Magic, garuda!Medic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-09
Updated: 2015-04-09
Packaged: 2018-03-22 03:12:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3712645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lightspeed/pseuds/Lightspeed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Medic conspires with Merasmus to make Archimedes his familiar.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Familiar

"He will be an extension of your essence, you realize. He will be your eyes and ears, and you will be able to communicate with one another more clearly than any other creature without telepathy. He will know your moods and your words, and you his," Merasmus warned, eyes cast more firmly to the little dove perched on his finger, preening lazily as the towering wizard spoke. "His lifespan will be your own, but should he be killed, he will take the part of you you've vested in him with him. You will lose a piece of yourself."

"He is tied into the respawn system," Medic mentioned, not bothering to hide the super science he was sure the wizard was already very aware of. After all, he'd personally sicced the Monoculus on the RED team and witnessed the impermanent results.

"Then as long as any harm that befalls him happens to be within its range, you are fine. You've got an unlimited lifespan, Medic. Your job, likely, does not."

"Mein patience does not either, Merasmus," the garuda grumbled, holding out his hand and smiling as Archimedes fluttered over to his finger, abandoning the taller of two magi. "I have been with Archimedes for a decade, und the only time he has ever come to harm during that time is during my employment with BLU. I registered in him respawn immediately, because I know his habits, und indeed, sometimes he gets onto the field because I likes to play with the gore he finds. I would never be so permissive with him were there the slightest chance for mein Baby to be harmed with concequence." He ran a finger over the dove's head, smiling as the little bird craned into his touch.

"A decade?"

"Ja."

"I was unaware doves had such a long life span," Merasmus mused, opening the tome he'd sat on his table.

"In captivity, well cared for, they can live long enough to graduate college," the mercenary chuckled, craning in to look.

"Then you're sure. Place Archimedes upon the circle."

Medic did as he was told, setting the slightly confused bird down on Merasmus' table, at the centre of a generic magic circle carved into its wooden surface. "Now what?"

"Follow your spell," the taller man instructed, stepping aside to let the doctor read the open book.

Blue eyes scanned the pages, taking in every detail as Archimedes cooed impatiently. Medic wanted to be absolutely sure of everything before he even began to weave his spell. Himself, he could endanger. Archimedes was too important.

"It says here I need to shed blood," Medic muttered, jumping with a start as a blade was suddenly thrust in front of his face, Merasmus holding it with a grin. "Ah, uh, danke."

The doctor took the blade in one hand, drawing it across his opposite palm. It stung, slicing a little deeper than probably necessary, and quickly ushering forth a steady flow of red. He squeezed his hand, holding it over the carved circle. His blood fell and slipped into the grooves in the wood, quickly spreading and filling its crevices, a soft magical hum beginning to emanate from it.

Shaking out his closed fist, Medic tried to ignore the warm prickle of his flesh knitting quickly back together, his regeneration kicking in almost immediately. He peered at the book again, then took a bloody finger and swiped it across Archimedes' forehead, making the dove coo in confusion. He wasn't used to the doctor's own blood. It was then that Medic began to weave.

His fingers wiggled, hands moving, tracing patterns in the air before himself. He tugged at the ambient magic, heavy and thick-woven in the depths of Merasmus' sanctum, and began to pull it loose and re-stitch it, an azure glow subsuming his hands and trailing behind their movements with brilliant light. The doctor saw the patterns of magic surrounding everything before him and began to connect them between himself and Archimedes, the blood circle beginning to glow beneath the confused, but largely cowed, bird.

Archimedes cooed, sitting down in the circle and looking about, following the movements of his owner's hands, watching with the utmost curiosity as a strange feeling crept through him. It was like when the doctor would throw open the windows on a breezy morning and let in the light and wind, and it made him feel both light and weighty at once. He fluffed his feathers.

Medic's wings craned open wide, and before his and Merasmus' eyes, the azure of the garuda's magic bore magenta hues, mixing and curling about the blue, soon bleeding in with yellow. The doctor's eyes burned, never blinking, as his somatics grew more complex, crafting and tying magics together, weaving them together like a great arcane loom, combining schools into a spell both complex and so simple it's one of the earliest a mage learns. Green lanced to life, springing between Medic and Archimedes, and dragging the colours with it, no longer ambient glows over hands and circles, but chaining together between the two avian creatures, tying and binding them together. Grey sparked out next, then orange and red, violet, dark grey, and at last a rich blue, darker than the doctor's personal arcane energies, and completing the application of energy.

The light joining them began to cover both creatures, blending into their being, and the azure glow of Medic's magic blazed from them like a great pyre. His hand falling to the dove's head, the healed cut against bloodstained feathers, Medic invoked the spell's completion, voice clear as a bell, "Constitue Familiarium!"

An array of colour bloomed, flickering out in flashes until only the azure-clad magenta remained, binding the two creatures together, consuming them completely. With a bright burst and a sound like the crack of thunder, it was gone, a few soft motes of Medic's blue arcana left to settle through the air and fizzle away.

Merasmus smirked.

Medic blinked, finally, his eyes aching. He removed his spectacles and rubbed at them a moment, before setting the lenses back atop his nose.

"Are you alright, Vatti?" Archimedes asked in a child-like voice Medic knew from other works of magic.

"Archimedes! You can speak!" the doctor gawped giddily. It wasn't the first time he'd used magic to achieve the effect, but it was a pleasant surprise nonetheless.

"So can you, Vatti!" the bird teased. "May I leave the table now?"

"Oh, of course!" Medic offered his hand and the dove crawled onto it, fluttering up from it to his shoulder. Turning to Merasmus the doctor grinned, "So, being able to understand him is part of the ritual?"

"I did say you would know one another's words and moods, didn't I?" the wizard shrugged.

"That you did," the garuda nodded. "You cannot understand him?"

"I don't speak bird."

**Author's Note:**

> requsted by tumblr user ysmni


End file.
